Source:
http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=34828&t=1&c=129&cg=4&mset=1011

INTERNATIONAL. Internet giant Google on Tuesday replied to the open letter the Doha Centre put on its website two days ago about alleged calls for censorship by the United Arab Emirates authorities.

"Contrary to false reports, no censorship plan was drawn up", the California based company said in a statement. It had no intention of censoring results from its search engine and its subsidiary YouTube.

Google recognised that it had recently met Dubai Police "along with several other entities spanning government, business and the public sector across the region".

The talks were part of its ongoing efforts "to understand the countries in which we operate, and for others to understand Google, YouTube and the policies around our products", the statement added.

In the open letter, the Doha Centre expressed concern about a meeting in March between Chief Inspector Dhahi Khalfan Tamim of Dubai police and Giselle Hescuk, Google's head of development for Europe and the Middle East.

According to the Centre's information, the police had officially asked Google and YouTube to "restrict content that is pornographic, mocks religions, strengthens atheism, promotes new religions, fosters a feeling of insecurity or is unsuitable for young children."

The Centre, which is headed by Robert Ménard, said the proposals were based on a list of 500 key words drawn up by the Dubai Police which would block access to certain sites. It asked Google to reject the proposals.

"It's a shame Google didn't take the trouble to answer our questions before we published the open letter," the Centre said. "Nonetheless, we are pleased to learn that no censorship plan has been agreed at this stage. We had to find out what was happening because the Dubai Police didn't seem to want to give up the idea.

"We are still asking Google to give us a firm and definitive promise that it will reject all forms of censorship, whatever the pressure, whatever the price to be paid."

Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tanim, chief of Dubai Police, confirmed yesterday that he had wanted to secure censorship of "more than 500 key words" on the YouTube site, and would not exclude coverage of other sites.

The UAE's Telecommuniations Regulation Authority was supposed to block "undesirable" websites and "the Google and YouTube representatives responded positively to the police requests."

Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tanim said the move was aimed at protecting young people from the pornographic and anti-religious content which can be accessed on YouTube. "These key words open the door to online obscenity," he added.

In response to the Doha Centre's open letter, he went on: "The Centre interprets pornography as a legitimate right which people are entitled to imbibe across the Internet. But the Dubai Police do not agree with them in holding this view and so they have to recognise people who travel in the opposite direction.

"I didn't ask the Google representatives to prevent pornographic content being put online from Qatar. I only asked them to take this into consideration for the United Arab Emirates."

The Doha Centre pointed out that apart from the fact that the list of 500 or more key words had not been made public, making it impossible to check that they only covered pornography, plenty of other systems were available to protect young people from certain types of Internet content.